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[monter]

Most of you probably won't care, but the geek in me wanted to know, so I figured this out...

Most of us know how Earned Run Average is calculated. For those who don't, it's the number of earned runs allowed, divided by the number of innings pitched, and then multiplied by 9.

Fractions of an inning are expressed in .1 (1/3), and .2 (2/3) respectively.

The controls I established are as follows:

Regardless of the number of innings pitched, the number of runs allowed is always 1.
The innings are expressed as the first 1/3 of an inning (i.e. instead of 5 innings I use 5.1).

Now, I have figured out actual ERA using the actual expressions of 1/3 inning, so 5.1 innings changes to 5.33 innings.

Interestingly, a comparison of calculated vs actual ERA led to some interesting results.

At 1.1 (1.33) innings pitched, the calculated ERA (remember, allowing 1 run), is 8.18. The actual ERA is 6.77. 1.41 runs per 9 innings lower.

This data converges rather quickly as the innings increase to 4.1, then slows a bit at 5.1 through 8.1, then converges even more slowly until the ERAs meet at roughly 23.1 (23 1/3 innings pitched, where both the calculated and actual ERA are approximately 0.39.

So, the data is only significant if a pitcher pitches fewer than 4 1/3 innings and allows one run (2.20 ERA compared to 2.08), although one could argue pitching less than 3 1/3 is significant (3 1/3 with 1 run = 2.90 calculated, 2.70 actual). Otherwise, the one-run actual ERA is insignificant.

[jcisco loboe'77]

Count the geek in me also!!!! Different way of thinking!!!! Impressive info!!!